Because of recent technological advancements in the fields of computers and telecommunications, there has been a substantial increase in demand for “high tech” products. Not only do consumers want more sophisticated computer, telecommunication and other “high-tech” systems, they want it at a more economical costs. Because of this consumer desire, high tech industries are gearing their manufacturing techniques to produce products that are made as economical as possible, with improved performance and reliability.
One of the backbone industries supporting many high tech industries, including the computer and telecommunication fields, involves the manufacturing of semiconductor wafers. Semiconductor wafers are used extensively for the manufacturing of integrated circuits, semiconductor devices, and other circuits and/or components. The manufacturing of an integrated circuit or device typically comprises several manufacturing stages, including processing the semiconductor wafer to form the desired circuits and/or devices, forming a metal seed layer on the base plate of the semiconductor, plating the seed layer with another metal layer having a desired thickness, and dicing the wafers in order to form separate integrated circuits and/or components.
In the production of semiconductor integrated circuits utilizing semiconductor wafers, it is often necessary to utilizes dies in association with seal rings. Such dies and seal rings are well known in the art. Prior art seal rings are commonly rectangular or square shaped and are utilized for moisture protection. One of the problems that such seal rings face is the stress that mounts at the corners of such dies, particularly involving low-K IMD (intermetal dielectric) based devices. The present inventors thus have concluded, based on the foregoing, that a need exists for an improved seal ring that can reduce or prevent such thermal stress issues encountered at die corners. The present inventors believe that the improved seal ring structure and die corner dummy pattern disclosed herein can solve the problems faced by prior art methods and devices.